Evaluation of Humanitarian Innovation Evidence Programme (HIEP): Summative Evaluation Phase 1

Executive Summary

The Humanitarian Innovation and Evidence Programme (HIEP) intends to have impact on humanitarian actors’ capacity to deliver improved response and resilience programmes that are effective at supporting vulnerable people. HIEP is a £50.2 million investment that is working towards three specific outcomes:

• Outcome 1: International donors, including DFID, develop funding instruments and frameworks for investment into evidence, innovation, and its applications.

• Outcome 2: Humanitarian actors change skills, behaviours, relationships, cultures and systems to promote the regular integration of evidence into humanitarian and DRM interventions.

• Outcome 3: Policy and practice actors invest in social, economic and political innovations that focus on benefits for poor people in humanitarian crises.

This report presents the findings, conclusions and recommendations from the first summative evaluation of HIEP. It is the third of four stages of an evaluation process being conducted by Itad between 2013–18. The evaluation aims to provide both an independent assessment of progress and also to produce organisational learning and recommendations for the implementation of HIEP and future programmes. The purpose of this summative phase is to provide an assessment of short-term outcomes delivered by the programme and reflection on the programme management.1 The evaluation is organised around four key questions agreed in the inception phase:

• Relevance: How well has HIEP identified and responded to evolving priority needs and opportunities for investment in humanitarian evidence and innovation?

• Effectiveness: Which approaches have been more effective in enabling HIEP to ensure the creation, support, and application of high quality and relevant humanitarian evidence?

• Value for money (VfM): Which management and implementation approaches have enabled HIEP to deliver better value for money?

• Impact: What contributions has HIEP made to building and sustaining evidence-aware policy and practice by humanitarian organisations?

The evaluation focuses on eight of the HIEP projects as case studies and includes thematic analysis across the programme considering value for money, management, and gender and social inclusion. The more specific objectives of the first summative phase are to:

• Identify progress in the case study projects

• Assess the quality of case study outputs

• Assess the strength and progress to date in the influencing and research uptake strategies

• Identify where HIEP has contributed to change in the humanitarian sector Inform recommendations on HIEP design and facilitate learning in the HIEP Virtual Team.